Alright folks...

No more playing around with templates. i've settled on this one. The Barbie one was making me sick to my stomach. some joke just go to far. (Jokes are the soul's sincere desire.) He he. Until later, when i have something substantial to say.

For those that filed complaints...

...presenting: a new template. I dare you to file any complaint about this!

Elinor Dashwood

People back in Jane Austen's day--women, at least--seemed to have a lot of time to just sit and think about their situation in life. I think this must have been the case for Austen herself. How else could she have become so brilliant? How else could she have examined the depths of her own self to create characters of such substance? As a writer, I know that nothing comes from nothing. You cannot create a character that does not include some part of you, however infinitesimal. Jane Austen, while she sat and wrote quietly to herself, must have had so many selves inside of her. She wrote her spirited self into Lizzy Bennet; she wrote her sophisticated, independent--and flawed--self into Emma; she wrote her wise self into Anne; and she wrote her patient, longsuffering self into Elinor.

I know she's just a character in a story, but tonight I raise my glass to Elinor Dashwood, who endured all manner of disappointment but always calmly thought of others' needs before her own. She knew that sometimes it is okay to be happy even when you aren't. That it was better to do something you could do instead of worrying about something you couldn't.

So really, I raise my glass to the idea of Elinor, and that little part of human goodness that Austen found in herself to write about.

Without further ado...the latest parody

Down with introspection! We want laughter! We want gaiety! We want a ha cha cha! The only times I am morose are when I am inside my own head, and when I happen to be transcribing what is in my head. No more! I want to stop living in the past! Start living in the present! Which brings me to a funny parody I made up. I love parodies, as some of you know. Like puns, they show a superior intellect--but, unlike puns, they show good taste. Just kidding. Anyway, here is my parody, which is actually a conflation of two songs, the first being Yellow Submarine by the Beatles, and the second is from veggie-tales "The Water Buffalo Song." Larry the Cucumber sings it. The parody is sung to the tune of the water buffalo song, and the words go like this:

Larry:
Everybody's got a yellow submarine.
Yours is blue but mine is green.
Where we got them I don't know but
Everybody's got a yellow submariIIIIIIIIIIIIiiiiiiine

Archibald Asparagus:
Wait a minute! not everybody's got a yellow submarine!
We're going to get nasty letters saying,
"Where's MY yellow submarine? Why don't I have a yellow submarine? And why is yours blue and mine GREEN?!"

Yes. Brilliant, I know! i'm trying really hard not to pat myself on the back. If any of you are unfamiliar with the water buffalo song from Silly Songs with Larry, familiarize yourselves right now.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a08A7lDjTFE

Until next time, this has been Silly Songs with Peary, the part of the blog where Peary comes out and "sings" a silly song. (Don't forget the squash song I posted a few months back.)

catharsis--feeling small and powerful

wow. i've never gotten so many comments on a blog. I figured i had better write a follow up as a kind of disclaimer and apology. but actually, I'm not interested in either apologizing or disclaiming. the truth of the matter is that my feelings of inadequacy and social failure have been trying to burst out of me in one form or another for too long. in this particular case, they exploded into a rant about something not really connected with my feelings of inadequacy. and i always feel bad feeding more negativity into the airwaves, but i needed a shoulder to cry on.

i use to be so cold except to certain people. i use to be so much more judgmental than i am now. i use to throw my opinions around as if they were solid truths. i am being too hard on the old me, but the fact is i used to be a lot of things before i went to Brazil and learned that all of that was just useless pride. I learned that you can make your mark by loving people, that you "let your light so shine" by serving people and letting them glorify God through you. I learned that it isn't about me being glorified; that's the wrong motive. it's about being kind to people so they can know God a little better through me. i learned to cry on my mission--not just for me but for others. i learned about what we take with us: meaningful relationships. i learned about sacrifice and inconvenience and discipline...even my arsenal of words cannot contain the things I learned.

And what are words anyway? symbols. eloquence, a weapon.

I came home so idealistic. i came home feeling like i could never be disappointed by anything again. i felt so empowered. and what's more, i wanted so badly to try out the new me with others in a none mission setting. i wanted to be open and kind and more tactful and less self-centered and all the things i didn't recognize in the old me.

imagine my disappointment, now, when it doesn't seem to make any difference. i feel like no matter what i do, i will always scare people away some way or another in spite of all the ways i've tried to change. i know this isn't true, but this is precisely what i've been feeling for weeks and weeks on end now, like nothing is good enough.

now, lest it be thought that i am looking for soothing reassurance that none of this is true, i'm not. Shortly after writing the diatribe below, i had a healthy conversation with one of my roommates in which I was able to diagnose the real root of my insecurity. i'm not going to go into it here, but i realized that after having suffered what was, in my opinion, a pretty hardcore rejection some time ago, i was subconsciously interpreting everything as a type of rejection, and my pride was being bruised once more. it was like every time i didn't get asked out or something it was a slap in the face.

not anymore. Let's just say that now, days later, i feel i have put things in their proper perspective and i don't feel the same way anymore. i have turned my focus to other things. i avails me nothing to worry about what i have no control over. i know i am doing my best, and that is all that matters. as for the rest? i trust it will work itself out in time. i feel that assurance. and i need not feel plagued by the fear of rejection any longer. i've never felt so small in my life--and yet...now that i've put things in their proper perspective, i'm starting to regain my power.

thank you for all your comments. they were both enjoyable and enlightening and in one case (john) just dumb. but that's okay, too. sometimes stupidity can be so cathartic.

Male Idiocy in Provo

I know I have been delinquent in my blogging, but I have not felt moved to write about anything until now. It seems that a diatribal spirit has entered my body and proven to be the only emotion strong enough to incite me to write. EXPLODE, rather.

I have been back from my mission for six months now. Let's see, I can count on one invisible hand how many dates I have been on during that time period. Do you catch my drift? I concede that for four of those months, I was living at home and going to the old, fuddy duddy ward. But I have since moved out--at no small expense to me in this time of economic distress--and I have bent over backwards through flaming hoops to make myself social; I have performed feats of emotional perseverance trying to be nice to people that don't initially interest me, giving them the benefit of the doubt--because, really, I DO tend to misjudge people; I got to FHE; I do demeaning things--like scavenger hunts--in the name of making my presence known; I try to just be a nice person! But has it availed me anything in the romantic scheme of things? Have I seen one proverbial red cent for all my pains? Ha! In fact, during the course of my socializing, I the one thing I HAVE come to discover is that maybe my impressions of people arent that wrong after all. Most of them are phlegmatic or close-minded or ignorantly republican (I don't have anything against republicans, just ignorance) or what have you. I find myself slipping into my old aloof cynicism about dating.

The short and tall of it is this: I am tired of feeling like I'm not good enough. I don't need to be defined by success on the social scene. What a stupid measure of success anyway. I don't care anymore.

yes, I am angry while i'm writing this. don't take it too seriously. But basically this has been what I've been feeling for the past month. Are young single adult men REALLY as obtuse in other parts of the country as they are here?